History of Radio and how The industry is Changing

It all started with Marconi and his discovery of radio signals and finding a way to harness electrical energy and send them to a device that creates sound and voice. By the 1940s nearly every household had tube-type radios in their living room space to be used for entertainment purposes and to receive information on news and current events.

This was the way people were kept up to date until the Television was invented in the 1950s, I am picturing how it must have been during those times when you had only sound and no picture to see anything going on and thus had to use your imagination.

Later on in the decade you started seeing radios without tubes and just utilized wall outlets to provide power for their users, enabling longer listening time as tube radios could burn out easier with wear overtime. I remember getting to see RCA Victor brand tube radios and actually used them hands on and I can tell you from experience they don’t come straight on, they have to warm up and then they can be used. As tube based went out of style electric only became the mainstay for consumers in the mid to late 60s, by 1973 FM radio came along to give AM a competitor although AM reaches farther than FM the FM band provides stereo sound as opposed to the latter signal that is only monotone giving the listener less sound quality than the latter. The reason for the difference in sound is AM waves travel in an up and down motion whereas FM waves only travel straight. Thus AM can travel farther than FM, AM is “Amplitude Modulation” and FM is “Frequency Modulation”.

I have had nights where I pick up stations from as far as Louisville Kentucky and even Los Angeles, Dallas comes in like it’s a local station every night for the most part.

Later on in years we began to see the emergence of streaming and satellite radio giving listeners ample options to hear stations from all over the country and even international stuff that you can also get on shortwave radio, the way this type of signal works is by relaying waves to where multiple signals bounce off the atmosphere, enabling farther reach than AM. In the mid 2000s you had the invention of HD radio, I compare this technology to being just like over the air TV works with digital because you have your main station and then expanded content on other channels within the signal, check out the logo below, if you see this it means you have an HD capable radio.

I see a bright future in even terrestrial radio with this HD signal technology being introduced to U.S radio markets, in my market there are roughly 4 stations broadcasting in HD at the time of this writing and more will be added soon in the near future and I am anxious to see what the future holds for this medium.

We will see what this year and other years hold. I will be listening for sure.